Twins were born of Nethalie the Doomspeaker and Delgaranor (The Red Horror) Elven Assassin (Extraordinaire) on the 9th of Wealsun. While the relationship was not a one night stand Dalgaranor was not the family man type, and would come and go as the whims took him. It does appear that their love was true, or perhaps they were the only people in the world they felt they could trust. Regardless no other children were ever born of the union.

Nethalie had discovered a gift for prophesying death as a girl, and while her parents had tried to suppress it, a small child had little ability to control the utterances, and the family were marked as outcasts. Nethalie, knowing there was no avoiding the visions embraced her role answering the questions of the living honestly, perhaps too honestly for most.

An angry petitioner, one who had not expected to hear the truth, incited the local villagers and she was slain by the mob as a heretic and witch. The curse that befell the members of the mob is still talked about to this day, as they all died in exotic ways within one year. Ricshard (Who would later adopt the moniker Haruchanar, the Sword Brother) was taken and delivered into the care of his aunt. The Fate of his sibling is unknown to him. The most likely scenario for both the curse and his twin is Delgaranor, his father, though the locals all assume it revenge beyond the grave.

Ricshard was raised by his maternal aunt Artholen (the Embroiderer) and for his early childhood her first husband Arshavir the Horsemaster (A wolf nomad from the far north) in the grasslands near Fax. Though horse-breeding could be profitable, the family lived in strict austerity, as required by his uncles strict interpretation of the guidelines of Mouqol.

Artholen was greatly worried that the child, who bore a skull and sickle shaped birthmark upon his stomach would develop his mothers visions of the underworld, and each dream or childhood fancy was scrutinized for some darker meaning. Regardless, mark aside he never seemed to express his mothers gift, and his childhood was fairly normal.

Ostensibly do to his exceptional grace young Ricshard was offered an apprenticeship with Barent the Sword Dancer, and with the exception of the annual foaling spent the better part of several years studying sword dancing and academics in the city of Fax. His first love was a fellow student, Jadrie, and they were moon-eyed for each other until war came to the city of Fax and they were separated. (Hmm my background imagines the events of the greyhawk wars, which doesn’t appear to be in your campaign, regardless the wild coast is hardly a well settled place, certainly some war could have come to Fax).

When war came Arshavir declared that the family would return to the lands of his birth to the far north, and Artholen refused to go. Both were adamant and their union ended, Artholen and her nephew were driven north by the war, to take up residence with the refugees at Safeton briefly before being allowed into the city as a guest of Rhun the Architect a long standing friend of Barent. Artholen like her sister was a great beauty, and even though she was no longer a girl, Rhun a man of middle years himself, fell in love with her, and they were married shortly thereafter.

Ricshard took great interest in architecture, and studied diligently under his new step-uncle. Rhun was more than met the eye though, and also secretly operated the local lodge of the Seekers of the Arcane (an organization which also included Barent, and possibly Delgaranor). Ricshard was slowly introduced to the organization, and was a well received junior member.

His first adventure was following Lady Krisnys (Steelfarmer) the Dauntless, a halfling bard he met while operating as a gofer at a Seekers meeting, into an old ruin in search of a golden flute. There wasn’t one of course, but much to the disapproval of his aunt (who was not in on the secret of the seekers, and was much too distracted taking care of her young child Vanwald to actually do more than grouse) he was hooked. Given his connections and skills, along with an intense interest in matters of historic arcane, he was soon given full privileges, and began forming expeditions of his own.

For the next few years he made his was about the wilds, working passage on ships to get to strange and exotic locales for tastes of adventure, nowhere has he truly found what he was looking for though, and so he set off once more, to the lands of Talmidge.